In antiquity the territory was a part of the province of
Artsakh of
Greater Armenia. In the Middle Ages it was part of the principality of
Khachen; in the 17th and 18th centuries, the territory formed part of the Melik-Abovian dynasty's
melikdom of
Gulistan, with its capital in the fortress of that name. During Soviet times the area was a part of the Azerbaijan SSR and was renamed Shahumyan (
Shaumyanovksy raion in Russian) after the Armenian
Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan, its administrative centre (Shahumyan or Shaumyanovsk) taking the same name. The population of the Shahumyan District was mostly ethnic Armenian, although the area was not included within the boundaries of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. In the spring/summer of 1991, Soviet general secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev ordered
Operation Ring in which the Soviet Red Army and Azerbaijani
OMON surrounded some of the area's Armenian villages (as well as
Getashen and
Martunashen in the neighboring
Khanlar District of the Azerbaijan SSR) and deported their inhabitants to Armenia. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in Shahumyan's 23 villages were deported from the region. The operation involved ground troops, military, armored vehicles and artillery. The deportations of Armenian civilians were carried out with gross human rights violations documented by international human rights organizations. Armenian forces recaptured most of Shahumyan in fall 1991, and the region was included in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic when it declared its independence in December 1991. The town of Shahumyan was subsequently renamed to
Aşağı Ağcakənd by Azerbaijan in 1992 and partially repopulated by Azerbaijanis, mostly representing
internally displaced persons deported from
Nagorno-Karabakh and
surrounding districts. Armenian forces
captured the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan in 1993 and administered it as a part of Shahumyan Province. As part of an
agreement that ended the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the town of Kalbajar (Karvachar) and its surrounding district were returned to Azerbaijani control. The initial deadline of 15 November 2020, but this was extended to 25 November 2020. It was the second region to be returned to Azerbaijan per the ceasefire agreement, after Aghdam. ==Towns in Soviet Shahumyan and Getashen==